Tucson-based Connelly Billiards, a high-end billiard table manufacturer and retailer, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday.
Connelly has its main headquarters at 1440 S. Euclid Ave. and operates a retail showroom at 5855 E. Broadway, as well as four stores in the Phoenix area. The company also has dealers throughout North America and exports tables.
Under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a debtor is protected from legal action while it works out a plan to repay creditors.
The company referred questions to bankruptcy attorney Scott Gibson.
Gibson said in an e-mail that the filing won't immediately affect operations at the company's five retail stores, which are only in Arizona, "although there may be some consolidation after the first of the year similar with what is happening to many retailers."
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Connelly intends to continue manufacturing tables and selling them on a wholesale basis to its network of independent retailers, Gibson said.
The sales of billiard equipment hit $240 million in 2005, according to a study from the Billiard Congress of America, a billiard industry association.
Rob Johnson, CEO of the Billiard Congress of America in Broomfield, Colo., said that no one is immune to the hard economic times, especially billiard businesses that rely on discretionary income.
Prices for Connelly's tables can run into the thousands of dollars.
"Connelly has a first-class reputation in the industry — I think they'll get through it," Johnson said.
The company began in 1980 when Craig Connelly was first out of college.
He began his business in a rented garage and sometimes slept on the tables, according to Connelly's company biography.